Symmetry

I haven't posted in a long time, I was working a lot of hours on a project at work. But now I am starting to recover so time to post something.

A while ago I told somebody that a particular situation offended my sense of symmetry. It started me thinking and I realized that a lot of the way I think has to do with symmetry. My concept of fairness reflects symmetry in that I believe each side of a deal should be equal. My database designs usually reflect symmetry in the way I design the relationships between tables.

Sometimes however you don't have symmetry. A tree growing naturally is rarely symmetrical, yet it is not any less beautiful. In real life you can't always have symmetry, and certain situations it would be bad if you did (parents should punish a child but a child should not be able to punish his parents).

My need for symmetry puts me at odds with the real world where you can't always get symmetry and sometimes don't want it. Yet my sense of symmetry has served me well in my work and some of my real life dealings.

In a practical sense my need for symmetry is both good and bad. It has allowed me to create great database designs yet has caused me serious frustration in dealing with the real world. How do you deal with this?